This Saturday, ‘Hack ta Ville’ will make hackers of ordinary citizens

Urban and computer geeks will descend on McGil this Saturday for ‘Hack ta Ville‘, an intro to the open data and hacking-for-the-common-good movement. This event is part of a growing wave of ‘hackathons’, events that bring together computer programmers, urban geeks, and a whole variety of citizens to find and use the data on the urban systems. The goal: rescue it from obscurity and make it useful in the form of an ‘app’.

With the slogan ‘For the City, by the Citizen’, the intention of this event and the movement are clear. Using data released by cities or “scraped” by hackers, these folks have a decidedly grassroots approach to urban planning that puts citizens at the avant garde.

This hackathon is for beginners, with workshops aimed at teaching the basics. As a first time attendee, I’m relieved, since any mention of coding makes my eyes start to glaze over.

The event will take place this Saturday, from 9am to 5pm at the Shatner Ballroom at the Student Society of McGill University (SSMU) building, at 3480 rue McTavish. You can register on their website.